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The Good, The Bad, And The Very Bad

Today I read that “Microsoft Joins The Connected Car Battle, Introduce Windows In The Car” and followed that up by reading “Tesla Electric Cars Vulnerable to Remote Unlocking Hack, Researchers Say.”

I’ve already mentioned that many are concerned about privacy invasions with connected vehicles. We are all vulnerable with our smartphones, laptops and other devices so it stands to reason when you make a vehicle connected, it too will be subject to hackers.

Nitesh Dhanjani told a cybersecurity conference recently that Tesla electric cars are vulnerable to simple, traditional hacking techniques. All a hacker has to do is crack one password and they can remotely unlock and then lock the vehicle. A key fob, using a wireless signal via the Internet is used to unlock the vehicle whenever the owner is ready. If the six-digit password is hacked using traditional methods the hacker can break into the car! The good news is they can’t drive off in the car without further hacking. If I owned a $100,000 vehicle I would certainly expect better!

Over 60% of vehicles will be “connected” all over the world by 2017. Cars can and will produce hundreds of megabytes of data each and every second. Technology is moving at amazing speed and sadly governments and legislation can’t keep up!

At this moment there are a scant amount of legalities in place to determine what information a vehicle collects and who has access to the data. Privacy experts say the average consumer doesn’t stop to review the fine print when they purchase a car and even fewer would understand privacy concerns due to connectivity.

In many ways having a connected car is great! They can do so much good and make our lives easier. Like a lot of things that are great, however, it also has the possibility of being used for bad…by hackers just waiting for the opportunity.

Stay tuned and as I hear and read more, I’ll be sharing so you know what to expect…and when!

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